If you are new to video editing PC where you know where to start it can be difficult, so hopefully this guide will point you in the right direction.

First you will need a few machine tools

Camcorders / Video Decks

Depending on your needs or goals there are different solutions that need to be discussed, so I will divide them into different categories.

1. If you are a newcomer I recommend buying a new digital camcorder, this will give you high quality video and audio quality and make getting started on video editing much easier, suitable for beginners. There are thousands of options for cooking a wide variety of budgets.

2. You may already have an old video booth or camcorder that uses older analogue effects such as composite or s-video (make sure you first check the results you have).

For this type of setup, you will need a photocopy / analogue card in the digital converter, which is discussed further in the article.

Video editing PC

It is now possible to easily download videos from your Digital Camcorder directly to your PC and edit them.

If you are looking to buy a new PC or build a new one then the specs of currents are strong enough, the standard PC these days is P4, 512Mb Ram, 80Gb HDD, Windows XP, or something about those lines.

You can always use your existing PC if you have one, but I do not recommend using anything below PIII 600.

Additional Hardware

When transferring video from your camcorder to your PC there are many additional things to consider depending on the type of camcorder you are using.

If you are using a digital camcorder all you need is a firewire card (also known as an IEE1394 card), most existing PCs are now available, if not, you will need to purchase a card separately. Some of these will come with links to editing software like Adobe Premiere but this depends on which card you buy and how much you spend, if your camcorder is connected to your firewire port windows it will see your Digital Camcorder.

If you are using an older analogue simple camcorder you will likewise require a simple to computerized converter, see the section on video editing cards below.

Speed?

It is good to consider the speed of your Pc’s Processor, the speed will affect the rate at which your video will be encrypted, encoding is when your DV video clips are converted to a more compressed format, for example, DVDs included in MPEG2. So the sooner the better. Also, consider the amount of RAM on your PC, 256Mb would be a minimum.

Additional Hard Drive Storage

It is worth considering having an additional drive dedicated to your video, remember that five minutes of DV footage uses 1GB of disk space so consider a hard drive like 80Gb or 120Gb, and consider disk drive RPM, at least 7200RPM can be recommended.

If your PC supports it (most new ones do now), then the Serial ATA (SATA) drive will offer up data transfer rates of up to 150MB / sec compared to the 100 or 133 provided with IDE drives, you can also check with -SCSI drive if you are a PC has a SCSI adapter as usual.

DVD / CD burners

If you plan to put your film on a CD-ROM (VCD), or DVD and then CD RW or DVD RW as an important piece, many new PCs may have a CD RW or DVD RW as usual, burning your DVD , you will need DVD Authorization Software.

Video Editing Cards

If you have an old camera / video analogue deck then analog or PCI analogue cards will suffice.

These analogues dedicated to digital converters take the conversion process off of the CPU and therefore speed up transmission.

If you have to get a standard scan card as cheap cards can produce mixed results,

Video Editing Software

Once all your artwork starts and you start creative work, you can take video from your camera, edit taken clips, edit them in order, add trades, credits and song, titles, and when you’re ready to send your movie back to the camera or the appropriate encoded format (i -DVD, VCD, etc.).

Last thought:

All in all, anyone can learn to edit a video. It is the basic digital literacy skills of today’s connected world. Some people may feel that they lack the knowledge or skills needed to make a successful video. However, the fact is that, as consumers watch the video for hours, we have naturally improved our understanding of what makes a good video. The tools to do this work are readily available to anyone committed to learning how.

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